Monday, June 27, 2011

"How does the Creator know everything?"

The Creator has no “outside”.All Creation resides within Him,United within His Beingness.Just by knowing Himself,He also knows everything else.(Adapted from Tanya I 48)

------------------------------------ This past Sunday my students had asked me, "How does the Creator know everything?"I explained, "He knows everything just by knowing Himself."The class shot me a puzzled look."Look" I continued, "The whole universe is inside of Him. There's no such a thing as being outside the Creator.""Really?", Came back the incredulous response of several students."But ... the universe is so amazingly large. How does it all fit into the Creator", They protested."Ah", I lifted my eyes, "You think the universe is so amazingly large? According to Kabbalah this whole vast expanse that we see all around us it's merely a teeny tiny universe within a even vastly larger spiritual universe."I waited to them to absorb what I just said. Once their faces and body language appeared settled, I continued, "And that vastly larger spiritual universe is merely a teeny tiny universe within an even larger spiritual universe. And that within an even larger one ... the process continues until universe is layered within universe like the layers of an onion with our physical universe right in the deep center. All these universes are inside of the Creator. He's around all of them."However, we ran out of time. So I did not yet have the opportunity to finish explaining to the class how the universes are truly one within Him. My concern is that from everything I explained, a student can mistakenly walk away with the notion that the Creator is positioned around a "bubble". Within this "cosmic bubble" there's a layering of universes. However, this is not truly the picture I was trying to convey.The picture I was trying to convey is closer to a dreamer having a dream. The dream, dreamscape and dream characters are not merely "inside the dreamer" - they are literally one with the dreamer. The very fabric of the dream is the dreamer himself. On the level of the dreamer's psychological fabric there's no distinction between dreamer and dream. They are seamlessly one and the same. So dreamer knows everything going on in his dream simply by knowing himself - for they are the same. Similarly, in a metaphorical sense the Creator is dreaming creation into being. This is why He knows everything that is going on simply by knowing Himself.

Hopefully, with the Creator's help I'll soon have the opportunity to convey this notion to my class.

About Me

On this blog Elchanan, a.k.a. Choni, shares some of his reflections on Jewish spirituality and mystical thought. He asks readers to please accept his writings as fertile ground for thought and not necessarily as the "final word" ~ as he's merely contributing to the general discussion. He does not view himself as an authority, but, merely as a student whose growing and hoping to help others grow too. If you wish to contact him, he can be e-mailed at Newlight26@gmail.com.